Quinebaug Valley Community College presents the popular Waiting for Yoko Series: “Celebrating Women’s History with Poet Rhonda M. Ward.” The reading takes place on Thursday, February 23 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm in the Fireside Lounge on QVCC’s main campus at 742 Upper Maple Street in Danielson, Connecticut 06239. An open mic follows the featured reading. The event is free and open to the public. Light snacks and refreshments will be available. Please note: face masks that cover the nose and mouth are required.
Rhonda M. Ward is a native of Dayton, Ohio where she grew up across the street from poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar and began reciting his poems at the age of eight. She has organized poetry readings in the southeastern Connecticut region for nearly 20 years. She currently co-hosts the annual Langston Hughes Community PoetryReading at the Mystic Museum of Art, which will celebrate 14 years in 2022. Rhonda’s poems have appeared in print and online, most recently in Connecticut Woodlands, Cape Cod Quarterly, the nature anthology Waking Up to the Earth (edited by Connecticut Poet Laureate, Margaret Gibson), and online at the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day Project. Ward has served on the board of directors for The Writers Block Ink and Soul Mountain Retreat. She has collaborated with visual artists on numerous projects including 3 Steps Forward, 2 Steps Back, which addresses systemic racism and was exhibited in April 2021 in Vero Beach, FL. Ward has read her poetry internationally, including Skiathos, Greece, Cumbria, UK, and Sofia, Bulgaria. She was appointed Poet Laureate for the City of New London in 2017 and passed the torch to the next poet laureate in April 2021.
For more information please contact Jon Andersen, professor of English, at jandersen@qvcc.edu (860-932-4054) or Jessica Porzuczek, instructor of fine arts at jporzuczek@qvcc.edu (860-932-4000).